Malaysian employers are paying undocumented Bangladeshi workers wages much lower than the average, taking advantage of lack of legal protection for migrant workers, says a Malaysian migrant rights activist.

In Malaysia, there is a large informal sector where undocumented workers find jobs easily, and the employers target them, Sumitha Shaantinni Kishna, an assistant director at Malaysian Bar Council, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Kishna is now in Dhaka to attend the Ninth Global Forum on Migration and Development Summit. The five-day summit will end on Monday.

“The employers have to pay a huge amount to hire workers legally. So they promote undocumented recruitment.

Unfortunately, the law enforcement agencies take action only against the undocumented workers, not against the employers,” Kishna said.

Around 98 percent undocumented workers detained in Malaysia are found guilty in court, as the judges are only concerned about the workers' immigration status. No action is taken against the employers, she said.

“Malaysian immigration policies are not helpful for migrant workers.”

She said Malaysian employers pay each Filipino worker at least 1,200 Malaysian Ringgit (MR) a month. But they pay MR 1,000 to a Bangladeshi worker, who gets only MR 800 or below after deductions for tax or levy.

The rights activist noted that Bangladesh government has failed to negotiate with the Malaysian government for ensuring better salaries for its workers.

“Malaysia is not going to hire workers from developed countries such as the USA, Australia or Canada. It hires workers only from least developed countries like Bangladesh and Nepal because it gets workers from these countries by offering very low wages.”

“Bangladesh signed an agreement with Malaysia for G2G [government to government] recruitment system in 2012. Unfortunately, Bangladesh government didn't push Malaysian employers to pay higher salaries, it just asked them to pay the minimum.”

For Bangladeshi workers, the G2G system can provide better protection, as it cuts migration costs and ensure other basic rights of the workers, she said.

If the two governments decide to engage private agencies in the recruitment process, only the licensed ones should be allowed to do the job under strict regulations. It must be ensured that no one can cheat workers by making false promises, added Kishna.

Around four lakh Bangladeshis are legally working in the construction and plantation sectors in Malaysia, while some two lakh are working without proper documents.

Talking to this correspondent, Cloin Rajah, an international expert on migrant rights, said Bangladeshi migrant workers face a lot of repression abroad by unscrupulous employers and recruiters because the host countries are not protecting their rights.

“We need international standards. We cannot rely on the countries that are benefiting from the use of migrant workers in that way,” said Rajah, a Malaysian-born expert who now lives in the USA.

The international community needs to create a standard that can be implemented and monitored, and that would give scope for imposing sanctions on the violators -- recruiters, employers or whoever they are, he noted.

“Sometimes, bilateral agreements are not that useful. In many cases, it is necessary to establish international standard … That is why we have such a forum [GFMD] so that we can negotiate and discuss the best practices that are ready to use and what can be implemented,” he said.